UNION AND CBO PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

June 15-August 7, 2009

Cost for hosting an intern: $5,500 undergraduate; $6,500 for graduate.
Unfortunately this year, the Labor Center will not be able to provide scholarships

Unions today are facing unprecedented challenges. Every organization needs talented and effective people to contribute to their work on the ground. The Labor Center’s summer internship program — Labor Summer — has proved to be a very successful way to connect skilled and committed UC students to unions and labor organizations that can benefit from their contributions.



Gaining Valuable Skills
Labor Summer is not just another summer internship program. Students not only learn about unions, they also see how their skills can make a valuable contribution to their host organizations, including industry and policy research, economic and policy analysis, and the ability to speak a number of languages, such as Spanish, Tagalog, and Cantonese.

Opportunities to Meet Students
Unions also benefit from graduates of the program who constitute a highly skilled, well-trained and committed group of new talent. Over its eight-year history, the Labor Summer program has racked up an impressive record. It has trained and placed nearly 200 interns. The program’s retention rate—the percentage of interns that continue to work in the labor movement—is almost 30 percent!  This is an exceptionally high retention rate and speaks to the quality of the program, not to mention the satisfaction of working in the labor movement. The value of the program is illustrated by the frequency with which unions hire on interns once the program ends.

The Labor Summer program provides an extremely valuable and successful vehicle for students to learn how their skills and energy can connect with the labor movement and to working people. It provides resources and access to the University for unions and community organizations in the form of students, and perhaps most importantly, it provides preparation for and entry to the labor movement to a diverse group of students, whose skills are more valuable than ever.


The Labor Summer program provides unions with:

• Recruitment and screening of student interns
  
  
• Orientation, on-going training and supervision of interns
  
  
• Support for union staff on how to best use the interns' skills
  
  
• Labor Center staff or alumni of the program as mentors
  
  
• 40 hours per week of work by skilled and committed students for 7 weeks
  
  
• Opportunity to hire pre-screened and trained students

• Clear project for interns including goals, objectives and a timeline
  
  
• An assigned staff person to supervise the interns' work
  
  
• Office location within commuting distance of the greater Bay Area
  
  
• Ability to contribute funds up front for the interns' stipend and training costs.